Call for “Local” Recipes
Governor Martin O’Malley invites teams to submit original recipes using local ingredients for Maryland’s annual “Buy Local Cook Out,” to be held at Government House in Annapolis on Thursday, July 15.  The cook out is the signature kick-off event for the statewide Buy Local Challenge Week (July 17-25), when all Marylanders are encouraged to eat at least one local product each day of the week. Entries are due June 1.

Recipes that represent Maryland’s Best bounty will be chosen in each of the following categories:
° Appetizer                                       ° Main dish
° Side dish or salad                          ° Dessert
° Beverage                                       ° Table decorations (centerpieces)

Click here for complete rules of entry and additional information.

Asian Tiger Mosquito: Summer Pest Extraordinaire

• It bites readily during the day and will also follow you into your house or car.
• It is black with distinctive white stripes on its legs
• It won’t breed in most natural areas of water, but loves any man-made container that holds water, so check your yard and get rid of or tip out anything holding water weekly Click here for more tips on preventing mosquito bites and West Nile virus.
• It won’t fly very far- about the length of a football field, so it’s important to talk to neighbors about checking their yards for breeding containers

here.

Christy Harp and her 1725-pound World Record. Photo Credit: Burrhead, Courtesy of Big Pumpkins.com

Maryland’s First Great Pumpkin Weigh-off
Do you want to do something different in your garden or on your farm this year?  Why not try to grow a giant pumpkin. It’s not easy and will test your patience and skills.  But now is the time to start if you want to give it a shot.  Sow some giant pumpkin seeds and join in the fun of the Great Maryland Pumpkin Weigh-off in October.  The only real rule in this contest is that the pumpkin has to be grown in Maryland by the person entering the contest.  Farmers, backyard gardeners, and anyone else growing pumpkins are welcome.

Growing tips are available at the University of Maryland Home and Garden Information Center website. The official weighing will be conducted by the Maryland Department of Agriculture’s Weights and Measures Section using an industrial strength, large capacity certified scale.  For large entries, pallets are recommended. The winner, determined by heaviest weight, will receive a commemorative award and incredible bragging rights.

Details will be forthcoming.  Pumpkin growers interested in participating in the Great Maryland Pumpkin Weigh-off should contact Kate Mason, 410-841-5770 or MasonKB@mda.state.md.us. The University of Maryland

Photo courtesy of USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org.

Tackle Termites with Licensed Pesticide Firms

People Profile: Warren Bontoyan

Sweet, sour or putrid. These were the taste-test categories used by
FDA inspectors as an indicator of the safety of butter entering consumer
markets in the late 1950s.  If the butter
didn’t meet the standard, inspectors would call headquarters and marshals
would seize the shipment at its destination, usually in New York where most of
the butter was sold.   Inspectors
of the time also checked the many seafood and produce canneries, food
processing facilities as well as dairies.
Conducting inspections like these across Maryland, Virginia and North
Carolina was the beginning of Maryland State Chemist, Warren Bontoyan’s, long
and distinguished consumer protection career. Today, he leads one of the top
state chemistry laboratories – MDA’s.  Warren
has seen dramatic and radical changes in technology, scientific methods, and
the role of the government.  As he says,
“Things are better than they were. It’s been exciting to see how the fruits of
our labor have helped a lot of people.”

Serving as an FDA inspector right after his graduation from
the University of Maryland introduced Warren to just about everything in the
food processing realm from the back woods to the cities.  When he and his team were assigned to more
risky undercover illegal drug investigations, he drove over to USDA’s Agricultural
Research Facility in Beltsville where he quickly landed a position in 1960 as a
chemist in the fertilizer laboratory. Not long after, he moved to the Pesticide
Formulation Laboratory.  In the pesticide
lab, he began a rapid rise through the ranks. In no time it seemed, he became
director of the Analytical Chemistry Laboratory in the EPA’s Office of
Pesticide and Toxic Substances.  In 1970,
the lab, which he headed until his federal retirement in 1990, was moved from
USDA to the newly established Environmental Protection Agency.  

Warren loves to tell stories of the positive impact science
in regulation has had and reminisces about the role of the federal labs in
conducting proactive, science-based consumer protection investigations.  Government scientists like him once had a
great deal of latitude to follow a hunch.
As an example, during Warren’s EPA years, he and a colleague pondered whether a fumigant used in grain elevators at the time would survive the baking
process and leave residuals in breads that were provided to children
through the school lunch commodity programs.
They launched a laboratory investigation finding that in fact it did.  As a result, the particular product could no
longer be used in that application.  Warren
won a Bronze Medal from EPA for this project.

Other investigations let by Warren’s federal labs included identifying
the cause of the mysterious deaths of premature babies in hospitals around the
country in the 1960s; finding out why cattle were dying by the thousands on the
range; and determining the reason for a major fish kill on the
Mississippi.  The situations with the
children and the cattle were related to side reactions of certain chemical products
in certain environmental conditions or when they interacted with other
products.  As a result of Warren’s laboratory
analyses, products were removed from the marketplace or relabeled for safer
use.  

He notes that “industry is so much more in tune with the
environment than it was.”  His time with
the federal government was a time in which the field of analytical chemistry
was moving very quickly while molecular biology was moving slowly.  Today, he sees molecular biology moving
quickly and predicts we’ll soon see a whole new way of regulating and finding
medical innovations and solutions.

Just when Warren thought he might be retiring, MDA Secretary
Wayne Cawley and Assistant Secretary Charlie Puffinburger approached him about
becoming the Maryland State Chemist. As luck would have it, Warren agreed and transitioned
to MDA upon his retirement in 1990.  In a
matter of a few short years, he turned the lab into one of the most respected
on the East Coast.  Under his leadership
over the past 20 years, the lab has maintained that fine reputation.

The MDA State Chemist Section is responsible for
administering state laws regulating the registration, distribution and sale of
pesticides, feed, pet foods, fertilizers, compost, soil conditioners, and liming
materials.  His outstanding laboratory
and field staff support this mission by gathering samples and conducting lab
analyses for pesticide and toxic substances residue in food and environmental
samples. During his time at MDA, Warren and his staff have many, many
accomplishments. Among the more recent and most visible were:  the identification of dioxin in a nursery
product; the stop sale of BSE-tainted dog food; and being among the first in
the nation to identify melamine in pet food from China as the product causing
animal deaths just a few years ago.

In other professional activities, Warren actively served as
an expert advisor internationally with the United Nations’ World Health
Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, and as
a U.S. representative on the Collaborative International Pesticide Analytical
Council.  He is the author of many
scientific, peer reviewed, research articles.
In fact, he won another EPA bronze medal for creating and editing
the “EPA Manual of Chemical Methods and Devices for
Pesticides,” which continues to be used by states and many governments
around the world.

Warren is showing no signs of slowing down or retiring from
MDA.  He says he “is proud to be a part
of investigations to protect people and to help society.  It gives me a lot of satisfaction.”

A Baltimore native, Warren is married, has two children,
four grandchildren and lives in Freeland, Maryland near the Pennsylvania
border.  He feels blessed that he’s never
had a job he didn’t like and has always worked with people he likes.  MDA and all Marylanders are fortunate to have
close at hand his expertise and friendly counsel.

• Nutrient Trading Seminars, May 25, June 2, June 3
• County Envirothon Competitions, May
• Garden Lecture Series, May 22, June 19, July 17, Aug.21, Sept.18, Oct.16
• “Growing and Marketing Organic Vegetables” Field Day, June 16 (White Hall)
• 2010 Commodity Classic, July 22 (Centreville)
• PlanMaryland Public Forums, various dates, locations
• Maryland Farmers’ Markets, throughout the summer
• Social Marketing Workshop for Farm Businesses, April 27 (Hughesville)